The homeland of the Aztec, from which they ruled their vast domain, was a large (about 3,000 square miles), mountain-rimmed basin with a floor at approximately 7,000 feet above sea level. The surrounding ranges reached a maximum elevation of 18,000 feet in the volcano of Popocatépetl. The annual rainfall varied from 20 to 35 inches (500 to 900 millimetres) in the valley floor to a maximum of 50 inches on the southern escarpment. Approximately 80 percent of the rain fell between May 1 and October 1. Because of the high elevation, the area suffered from severe winter frosts that normally began in mid-October and lasted until the end of March. Normally, the rainfall was adequate for corn, even in the drier portions of the basin, but a major problem was the timing of the rains and the frosts. A delay of the rainfall to mid- or late June, accompanied by early autumn frosts, could produce crop disasters.

Another major problem for the pre-Hispanic cultivator was the paucity of level land. Much of the land surface is sloping, and the problem of soil erosion was acute. Furthermore, of the 1,600 square miles of relatively level land, 400 square miles were occupied by a chain of lakes; and much of the immediate lakeshore plain was waterlogged.

Because of the effect of elevation on the growing season, the areas above 8,300 feet were also unsuitable for cultivation, removing an additional 400 square miles from the agricultural resource. Even within zones of cultivation, the presence of steep slopes and thin soil further reduced the area of cultivation. It is doubtful that more than 50 percent of the basin was suitable for labour-intensive methods of cultivation. Yet in 1519 it supported a population of 1,000,000 to 1,500,000—i.e., a density of 500 people per square mile (200 per square kilometre), the densest population in Meso-American history. This was achieved by an extraordinarily intensive system of farming that involved a number of specialized techniques. Soil fertility was maintained by plant and animal fertilizers, by short-cycle fallowing, and by irrigation. In gently sloping terrain, erosion was controlled by earth and maguey terraces, in steeper areas by stone terracing. The problem of humidity was solved by canal irrigation of both the floodwater and permanent type. Much of the irrigation was done just before planting in April and May in order to give crops a head start and hence avoid the autumn frosts. Terracing functioned also as a method of conserving moisture. There is also evidence that dry-farming techniques were applied to store moisture in the soil. The most significant achievement of Aztec agriculture, however, was that of swamp reclamation, even including colonization of the lakes. This system of farming, called chinampa, was first applied to Lake Chalco. The lake covered approximately 60 square miles and apparently varied in its character from swamps to ponds of fairly deep, open water. By a process varying from digging drainage ditches to artificial construction of land from lake mud and vegetation, most of the lake was converted to highly productive agricultural land. A series of masonry causeway dikes were constructed across the lake to control flooding. By a system of dikes and sluice gates the Aztec even managed to convert a portion of saline Lake Texcoco, the largest and lowest lake in the basin, to a freshwater bay for further chinampa colonization.

The total area colonized was probably in the neighbourhood of 30,000 acres, and Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, depended on these lands for much of its food. By a comparable method, much of the waterlogged lakeshore plain was also converted into agricultural land. Particularly notable is the fact that all of these techniques of food production were achieved by human power and simple hand tools.

Aside from agriculture, the basin had a number of major resources, some of which were exploited not only for local consumption but also to supply other areas of Meso-America. Obsidian, natural glass of volcanic origin, was a superb material for a great variety of stone tools; and the northeastern ranges of the basin contained one of Meso-America’s major deposits. Basalt for manos and metates (milling stones) was also abundant. Lake Texcoco was a major source of salt, and the lakes generally provided waterfowl, fish, and other aquatic foodstuffs. The great pine forests above the limits of agriculture were a major source of lumber. On the other hand, the basin, because of its high elevation, was unsuitable for a great variety of tropical products, including cotton, paper, tropical roots and fruits, tobacco, copal incense, rubber, cacao, honey, precious feathers and skins, and such prized goods as metal, jade, and turquoise. The major motivation of Aztec conquest was to obtain control of these resources.

Social and political organization

Aztec technology differed little from that of other Meso-American groups. One of its distinctive aspects was differentiation by status levels. The use of most of the extra-local resources noted above was limited to a small upper and middle class; and there were striking differences in dress, housing, and diet by social class. Commoners, for example, wore clothing woven from maguey fibre, while the upper classes wore cotton garments. The use of imported foods, at least on a regular basis, was limited to the upper and middle classes. Commoners lived in small adobe or stone and mud huts, the upper and middle class in large multiroomed palatial houses of cut stone, lime plaster, and concrete.

Aztec social and political organization can be divided into a number of levels of increasing size and complexity of organization. The nuclear family—that is, a pair of cohabiting adults and their unmarried children—formed the lowest level of organization. The nuclear family functioned in procreation, education of children, and as a unit of food preparation and consumption, with a well-defined division of labour between husband and wife. Among the Aztec, however, a number of nuclear families usually resided together in a single cooperating household, or extended family. Such a family usually consisted of a man, his married sons or brothers, and their families. The average peasant household of this type was small. Up to three nuclear families occupied a small multiroom house divided into apartments for each family. The houses were usually placed within a courtyard fenced with organ cactus or adobe walls, forming a compound. The extended family household probably functioned as a unit of land use and food production. In the towns, however, some households could be considerably larger, and the household of Montezuma II included several thousand people.

A number of households, varying from a few score to several hundred, were organized into an internally complex corporate group referred to as a calpulli by the Aztec and translated as barrio (“ward”) by the Spaniards. Questions about the structure and function of this level of Aztec organization have caused a great deal of debate among Meso-American specialists. It is clear, however, that it was a physical and territorial unit as well as a socially organized one. It was a unit of land tenure. Calpulli lands were owned communally but were distributed among various households. The household retained the right of usufruct, but only the calpulli as a whole could sell or rent lands.

The calpulli rural communities varied considerably in physical appearance. Some were isolated, tightly nucleated physical settlements surrounded by their agricultural land, whereas in others houses were dispersed through the land holdings. In a few cases, they were physically attached as wards to one or more other calpulli. These differences corresponded to ecological, economic, and political factors. Rural, dispersed settlements were found on terraced hillsides in which houses were tightly integrated with the terrace; in the chinampa area, each house was placed on its chinampa holding. On the other hand, nucleated, isolated calpulli were found in areas of level land, and the ward type was usually found in the towns and cities. In the latter case, many lost their agricultural character and became units of craft specialization. The calpulli was a unit of political administration within the larger unit that will be referred to here as the state. It was ruled by a council of household heads presided over by a chief selected by the council from within a particular lineage. The calpulli functioned as a unit of taxation to the central government, as a unit of corvée labour, and as a military regiment.

The structure of the calpulli is open to question. Some sources call it a kin group, “a lineage” with a common ancestor; and as a result some anthropologists have referred to it as a clan, or sib. There is no evidence, however, of either exogamy or unilineal descent; in fact, marriage records from the post-conquest period show a strong tendency toward endogamy. There is some evidence of internal ranking and significant status differentiation, another non-clanlike feature. The sources also mention smaller territorial subdivisions, referred to as barrios pequeños, or “little wards.” If these are descent lines, then the calpulli resembled quite closely a type of kin group called by anthropologists a ramage, or a conical clan. This is a group with a myth of common descent, divided into ranked senior and junior lineages based on the seniority of older versus younger brother in the group genealogy. In support of this reconstruction is the statement that the calpulli god was a deified ancestor.

The calpulli also functioned as a unit of education, for each possessed a school for young men—the telpuchcalli—primarily for military and moral instruction.

Above the level of the calpulli was the state. With the exception of those historical periods when larger polities, such as the Aztec empire, emerged, such states in Meso-America, including the Basin of Mexico, were small. Just prior to the Aztec expansion there were 50 or 60 such states in the basin, with an average size of about 50 to 60 square miles. In 1519 these once independent domains had an average population of 25,000 to 30,000 people. In less densely settled areas, the territories were larger and populations smaller. The range of size was from a few thousand up to 100,000.

The average small state included a central town with a population of several thousand, the balance of the population consisting of the rural calpulli. The central town was divided into wards that corresponded in size and to a certain degree in structure to the rural calpulli but were clearly different in function; they in turn were divided into barrios pequeños. At the head of the state was an official called the tlatoani, to whom all household heads owed allegiance, respect, and tax obligations. The tlatoani’s position was fixed within a particular lineage, the particular choice varying from state to state. In some areas, succession passed from father to son; in others, the succession went through a series of brothers and then passed to the eldest son of the eldest brother. In still other states, the office was elective, but the choice was limited to sons or brothers of the deceased ruler. The office was accompanied by all of the trappings and sumptuary behaviour typical of despotic states. The ruler resided in a large, multiroom masonry palace inhabited by a great number of wives, servants, and professional craftsmen. He was carried in a sedan chair in public and treated with exaggerated respect by his subordinates. The tlatoani held considerable power: he appointed all lesser bureaucrats, promoted men to higher military status, organized military campaigns, and was the distributor of booty and tribute; he collected taxes in labour, military service, and goods from his supporters; he owned private estates manned by serfs; he was the final court of appeal in judicial cases; and he was titular head of the religious cult and head of the town market.

Many of these functions were delegated to a large staff of professional administrators: priests, market supervisors, military leaders, judges, tax collectors, and accountants. The tax collectors, or calpixque, were especially important administrators because they acted as the rulers’ agents in collecting goods and services from the calpulli chiefs.

Most of these positions were appointed and selected from two classes—the pipiltin (plural of pilli), and the professional warriors. Society was divided into three well-defined castes. At the top were the pipiltin, nobles by birth and members of the royal lineage. Below them was the macehual class, the commoners who made up the bulk of the population. At the base of the social structure were the mayeques, or serfs, attached to private or state-owned rural estates. Within these three castes, a number of social classes could be differentiated, according to wealth, occupation, and political office. The Aztec system made a distinction between ascribed and achieved status. By a system of promotions, usually as a reward for military deeds, commoners were appointed to such political offices as calpixque and judges. Many pipiltin held no political office and, unless they had inherited private estates, were forced to live off the largess of the ruler. Commoners who had captured four enemy warriors in combat were promoted to the rank of tecuhtli, entered one of the military orders, were assigned a private estate with serfs for their maintenance, and acted as an elite professional army. The children of both pipiltin and tecuhtli could enroll in the religious college, or calmecac, where they could be trained as priests or political administrators. The calmecac apparently was also open to certain other commoners, such as wealthy and influential merchants and craftsmen.

Aside from the commoner-warriors, the macehual class was further differentiated into class levels. Certain occupations were accorded higher prestige than others (merchants, lapidarians, goldsmiths, and featherworkers are mentioned, and the list probably included stone sculptors); and all urban occupations were assigned higher status as compared with rural farming. Since occupations were restricted to calpulli membership and since the calpulli were kin groups, it follows that crafts tended to be hereditary. In small towns the craft specializing group would have to be the barrio pequeño. In the cities it was definitely the larger unit, but in either case crafts would be found within hereditary corporate groups.

The system of social stratification emphasized ascribed status but also permitted considerable vertical mobility. The land-tenure system was an important aspect in maintaining both processes, as could be expected in a basically agrarian society. Although most of the land was held in common by the calpulli, private estates with serfs helped to maintain the prestige of the pilli class and similar estates assigned to political office; and the tecuhtli positions freed able commoners from the necessity of subsistence procurement.

The taxation system also helped to maintain the social system. All heads of households owed military service to the tlatoani. For the pipiltin and tecuhtli, this was the only tribute demanded. Urban craftsmen also paid tribute in their craft products but were exempt from corvée labour. That obligation, plus taxes in agricultural products, were the burdens of the rural peasants, and the mayeques owed their labour and agricultural produce to their overlord.

Two other elements in the Aztec social system were pawns and slaves. The former were poor men who could sell themselves or members of their household for a specified period of time. Their rights were carefully defended by Aztec law, and they were not slaves but more like indentured servants. True slaves did exist and in some parts of Meso-America were used as workers or servants. Among the Aztec, the mayeques were their counterpart. Slaves were bought in lowland markets and used primarily for human sacrifice.

The high development of craft specialization—much of it full-time—in Aztec towns has been noted above. But many rural communities also had part-time specialities, a feature due in part to the heterogeneity of the highland environment, with its highly local distribution of resources. Foreign goods were brought into the Aztec homeland by great caravans of professional merchants called pochteca, who frequently undertook journeys exceeding a year in length. As a group the merchants enjoyed very high prestige and even had their own tribunals. Various merchant wards of a great number of towns and cities in central Mexico were organized into one great trading guild that had its centre at Tenochtitlán. They also organized and administered the town markets, another highly evolved aspect of Aztec institutions. These markets were held in great open plazas—in smaller towns every fifth day, in larger towns and cities daily, although in the latter case the market population reached a peak every fifth day.

The centres and the political organization of large states such as the Aztec empire were fundamentally similar in character to small ones; but the vast differences in size (Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, may have had 140,000 to 200,000 inhabitants in 1519) demanded some changes. Generally, when one central Mexican state conquered another, the ruler of the conquering town extorted an annual tribute, but there was little attempt at political integration. In the case of the Aztec, this policy was generally maintained, but many conquered states were given Aztec governors. Furthermore, conquest was usually accompanied by an exchange of women from the two ruling lineages (conqueror and conquered), and successors to the throne of the conquered states were through these women, from the royal lineage of Tenochtitlán. As a result, the ruling class gradually tended toward a single kin group. Because of the great number of states conquered by the Aztec (400 to 500), some form of intermediate-level territorial and administrative organization became imperative. The states conquered by the Aztec were grouped into 38 provinces. One town in each province served as capital, and an Aztec tax collector-governor was placed there to supervise the collection, storage, and disposition of the tribute. In many provinces, the Aztec established garrisons. These consisted of warriors and their families culled from all of the towns of the Valley of Mexico, and they were assigned lands in the conquered province. Since they supported themselves, they were colonists as well as troops. The planting of colonists, combined with such factors as the merchant guild and royal family intermarriage, suggests that the Aztec elite were attempting to integrate more closely the population of the Valley of Mexico as a kind of core nationality for the empire. Other indications that the Aztec were in the process of achieving further political integration are statements in several relaciones that the tax collectors served as courts of appeals in serious judicial cases and also that the Aztec introduced the cult of their national god Huitzilopochtli to conquered provinces.